Crime Fighter Sinks Teeth Into Work

Canine Unit Gives Police A `Psychological Edge'

When some employees of a Tinley Park restaurant arrived at work a few years ago, they stumbled onto a burglary.

As they were going in the front door, a man dashed past them through the dining room. The employees went back outside, found a phone and called the police.

A few minutes later, Tinley Park officers searched the building but could find no trace of the burglar.

That's when the call went out for Baron, a 98-pound male Rottweiler, and his handler, Sgt. William McLaughlin of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County's police canine unit.

Within five minutes, Baron showed them where the burglar was, McLaughlin recalls of the 1992 incident.

"The burglar had gotten back there by crawling up through a false ceiling," he says. "Baron started barking and growling because he couldn't get to the guy.

"I called the dog back, because if we can go without giving a suspect a bite, we'd prefer that. So the police pulled the guy out."

McLaughlin and Baron are one of eight teams in the canine unit, based at the Tinley Creek Forest Preserve at 138th Street and Harlem Avenue.

They are primarily responsible for patroling parts of the 68,000-acre Cook County forest preserves, including the Tinley Creek division.

"We don't limit our patrols to just the grove (open) areas. We park our cars and go into the wooded areas with the dogs," says McLaughlin, whose squad car has a kennel where the back seat once was.

The canine unit's main job is to "preserve the peace by creating a presence" at the preserves, McLaughlin says. He has been with the unit for five years and has been an assistant trainer for three.

"The dogs give us a psychological edge. We've had guys run from us even though we have guns because they believe we won't shoot them. But there's something about a dog. A person just won't run from a dog."

The dogs have been used to rescue lost children and adults, seek out criminals hiding in the preserves, locate bodies and find articles such as clothing, bags and books that relate to a case.

They also are trained to sniff out narcotics that have been brought into the preserves.

"If narcotics are involved, the dogs will find them no matter where someone hides (them)," McLaughlin says.

Members of the canine unit also are responsible for "helping out wherever they're needed" in Cook County, McLaughlin says.

"Besides the preserves, we service any municipality in the county that requests the services of the canine unit. Usually, that's a local police department that doesn't have a canine unit or is faced with a situation where (it) needs a canine unit in addition to (its) own."

McLaughlin, who lives with his wife in a home on forest preserve property in Palos Hills, is on 24-hour call: "When a call comes in, the officer who lives closest to that call responds, so I tend to help out a lot in the south and west suburbs."

For example, in 1993, Baron and McLaughlin helped find the body of a woman in a burned-out building in Maywood.

"The roof of the building had collapsed, and, as a result, the firemen were having a difficult time finding the woman's remains," McLaughlin recalls. "Baron went in, found the area the body was in, and the firemen were later able to (remove) the remains."

Later that year the team also helped nab a trio of would-be bank robbers in Burbank.

"These guys had broken into the bank and were getting ready to cut into the vault with an acetylene torch when the bank's alarm went off," McLaughlin says. "The local police came in and searched the building but couldn't find anyone. So they decided to call in a dog to be absolutely sure before they locked the bank up.

"Five minutes into the search, Baron gave an indication (by barking and growling) that someone was in this false ceiling. And sure enough, we took the ceiling tiles out and there were three guys hiding inside there with the acetylene torch, jackhammers and all kinds of tools."

Helping people and working with dogs are among his favorite activities, McLaughlin says. His job combines both.

"This is a great job, but you have to really like this," he says with a grin. "Sometimes it can be no fun riding in a car with a wet, smelly dog or cleaning up after a dog after he's gotten sick."

The animals require continuous training, he says.

"I have an obedience and agility (course) next door to my house where I can work with (the dog) every day. You have to be consistent-if you're not, you'll just confuse the dog. So it's a lot of work."

A typical session includes obedience drills, and hand signal, agility and scent training.

The obedience drills focus on such tasks as heeling and distance control. In the latter, the trainer leaves the dog, tells him "stay" and walks away; he then stops and repeats the "stay" command, then tells the dog "come."

In hand-signal work, the dog learns to recognize gestures in addition to oral commands.